Healed but still , and will be forced to have contact soon

[Never Again]

I'm sure my situation isn't unique, so any advice or insight would be appreciated.

 

My girlfriend of 10 months dumped me in June (after being the one to bring up living together 2 months prior), and mutual friends are getting married soon so we'll be forced to have at least limited contact.

 

I've healed a lot over the past few months, but if I do end up thinking about it, I find myself still confused.

 

She threw off crazy mixed signals during the breakup. She cried the whole time and told me she loved me "SO much", but didn't feel the way she "thought she should" at almost a year into it, and that the feeling just suddenly popped up 2-3 weeks before. She said she didn't know where her life was headed...didn't know if she wanted marriage or kids, didn't know her career path or if she even liked boys or girls now (she was never interested in girls previously). She pinned it on all sorts of things, including an "energy thing that wasn't meshing".

 

After leaving me, she went to her best friend's house (a mutual friend...the one getting married in fact) and cried all night, told her all the same things. Couldn't put herself together enough to drive home. She questioned if she made a mistake, and was in a total daze. Called another friend the next day still crying about it. These two friends unwittingly did me a disservice by telling me that it wasn't over...that she was in a bad place and would come around. Ugh.

 

She met with me to talk it over, and said that she thought that if she made a mistake, she would have felt it. She claimed our relationship "should have been perfect", and that all the relationships where she "felt the way she thought she should at this point" were unhealthy and were with ****ty guys. She's 27 and never been single for more than 2 months or had a relationship last more than a year, so I tried explaining that maybe this was just the first time she was experiencing the end of the "honeymoon phase", but she was adamant about needing time on her own but that she would want to work it out, she just didn't know if or when and that I shouldn't wait around (which I agreed to).

 

She would text infrequently, and usually about nothing in particular. It was rare enough that I felt comfortable responding, but kept it brief and joking. I didn't want to be rude since I knew I'd have to see her in the future. She cried to my friend a month and a half after the breakup, telling him that she was happy being on her own for now, and that she knew she threw away something great but that she "had to". She made it a point to tell him about the guys she was turning down, and that if she wanted to be in a relationship, she would've stayed with me.

 

Fast forward two weeks, and she begins lusting after some guy that lives on the other side of the country. Flirts with him on social media. I'm irritated because I thought it was a little hypocritical and disrespectful...at least to be so public about it....but I shrug it off since we'd been apart for 2 months at that point. She finds out I know, freaks because she thinks someone is telling me embellished versions (didn't realize I pieced it together myself) and insists that "nothing is going on and nothing ever will" between the two of them. I tell her that she doesn't owe me an explanation, and she insists again that there's nothing, and that she's wanted to talk to me but was afraid of upsetting me. I even got the "I don't know what the future holds for us" line. She cried for 30 minutes while I explained that I wasn't bothered because I wasn't a part of her life anymore, and at the end of the conversation she's telling me how happy she was to talk to me.

 

I'm really not sure what happened. We had one lazy month where things slowed down, and her feelings just suddenly changed. More importantly, I have to be in an intimate setting with her in two weeks.

 

Do I avoid her? Be civil but not friendly? Fake it and go total NC after the wedding?

Edited September 28, 2013 by Pfenixphire
Spelling

[Grumpybutfun]

Pfenixphire:

Wow, this girl sounds like she has some things confused about life....

1. It isn't a fairytale. She wants fireworks and moonbeams all the time and that just isn't the way it is. After the honeymoon phase, you still feel the same which is why she is crying her eyes out, but you may not be giddy all the time as in the beginning when it is new.

2. Since she admitted to you that she had been in drama filled relationships, she may be missing that on-going high emotion all the time where you fight and make-up. It is clear to me that you two had a very healthy relationship where you lived normal lives and didn't start fights or try to control the other person for drama. She must know that those relationships where the guys were bad to her is not healthy and yet she chooses to leave yours, which is. Therefore, her viewfinder of the world is a little distorted on what is necessary to happiness.

 

Now is time to grieve for this relationship, appreciate the time you spent with her and move on. Treat her like an acquaintance you used to know but no longer have any interest in. She will want to feed her drama, but you don't need to play these silly games. She acted immature about what relationships really look like. The people who have the best ones know that they are about making decisions to stay even when the honeymoon period is over and working on the friendship and intimacy regardless.

Always be civil, but do not waste anymore time trying to figure this girl out. She had a stable and good relationship with you and she wanted to trade it in for a drama. Sometimes smart people aren't very sensible when it comes to their love lives because they have skewed ideas about what love, passion and commitment really look like.

Best of Luck,

Grumps

[Never Again]

Thanks Grumps,

 

I know my story was a little long.

 

She and I both had a month where we were overworked and overtired, and weren't at our best. That heady feeling of being "in love" calmed down to just "love" during this time...but I know that's normal and a little romance can bring it right back.

 

We had some big plans for the summer that would've done the trick too, but she bailed right before.

 

Wants to keep me around as friends too, since I'm "one of the most amazing people she's ever met". Bah!

 

Civil but not friendly seems to be the way I'll go.

[joe86]

My ex sounds like her, there's a ton of similarities there.

 

She text me last week or the week before, saying she'd been thinking about seeing me for a coffee after work. I'd agreed to this when we split.

 

I'm at a point where the last meaningful thing she did was choose to end it. We've been in contact since, maybe for her guilty conscience, but it's on me to move on. And to be clichéd, the ball is in her court to do something if the regret she felt soon afterwards is real.